Fixing a broken Pano

timk519

I've got a panorama I took in Gunnison CO this summer and, as you can see from the following crop, I missed a spot:



I want the road cropped out in the final image, but that still leaves a chunk of space from the edge of the road up to the fenceline that needs to be fixed. I've tried cut 'n' paste and clone/pattern stamping, but so far everything I've tried has one or more sharp lines where the copied-in material was dropped in.

Any ideas/suggestions appreciated - I've got LR 2 and CS4 to work with. Since this is the left side of the pano, I need to repair as much of this as possible in order to avoid cropping too much off the right side of the pano.

pathfinder

Why not just crop the shadowed area across the bottom of the image?

Why is including the asphalt so important to your image?

timk519

pathfinder wrote:

Why not just crop the shadowed area across the bottom of the image? Why is including the asphalt so important to your image?

??? I don't, which is why wrote this:

I want the road cropped out in the final image

I left it in this sample to show what's available to work with. Part of the problem is I can't crop his part of the pano too high w/out cropping out stuff that needs to stay on the other side of the pano.

Thanks for your interest!

pathfinder

Sorry I didn't read your post carefuly.

Why is the shadowed area above the road so necessary for this pano?

timk519

pathfinder wrote:

Why is the shadowed area above the road so necessary for this pano?

What you're seeing is only part of the left quarter of the pano. If I crop this part too high, I'll wind up cropping out parts I want to keep on the other end of the pano.

---

I've done some more playing around with this, did some cut 'n' paste into the blank area and then used the 'blur' tool to fuzz out the sharp edges. It's not an optimal solution, but there's no sharp edges to provide a visual disturbance to the picture.

I'm hoping there's a better solution though...

BinaryFx

Fixing "holes" or removing objects is covered by a technique called "digital inpainting", Google it (inpainting was traditionally done in painting and photo restoration).

Please give the forum a link if you find some good software out there. I usually have a link, but not in this case, as most of the search hits are for research papers. I believe that the Photoshop healing tools and Alien Skin Image Doctor use similar methods.

Lab color mode makes complex retouching easier, the tone in the L channel can be edited without the added complexity of colour. The colour in the A and B channels is very easy to retouch or fake. This is not a magic bullet, it just means that complex retouching is a little easier when one does not have to worry about colour.


Regards,

Stephen Marsh

members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx
prepression.blogspot.com

BinaryFx

timk519 wrote:

What you're seeing is only part of the left quarter of the pano. If I crop this part too high, I'll wind up cropping out parts I want to keep on the other end of the pano

That is an important bit of info!

I've done some more playing around with this, did some cut 'n' paste into the blank area and then used the 'blur' tool to fuzz out the sharp edges. It's not an optimal solution, but there's no sharp edges to provide a visual disturbance to the picture.

I'm hoping there's a better solution though...

I would use Photoshop healing tools to cover the sharp edges, rather than blur. Due to the way healing tools work, it is usually best to use them to clean up, rather than to fill in holes, as healing has problems with major differences such as a white hole.

P.S. Often stitching software has two or more options, one leaves a white hole where there is no data, another option warps the image...perhaps you could do a second stitch for this area using the other method and then use that to help fill in the hole (this would still require healing etc).


Stephen Marsh

members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx
prepression.blogspot.com

EarthDog

timk519 wrote:

Any ideas/suggestions appreciated - I've got LR 2 and CS4 to work with. Since this is the left side of the pano, I need to repair as much of this as possible in order to avoid cropping too much off the ride side of the pano.

I've never tried it, but would the new Content Aware Scaling in CS4 help? I'm thinking it might be possible to "scale" the patch of grass between the hole and the fence to fill in enough of the hole to allow you to crop where you need/want. Maybe in multiple stages, rather than one big step. Digital interpolation usually works better in small steps.

Techv

In Photoshop, you can use lasso/copy/paste to duplicate the shadow area you have out over the stretch of missing photo.

After you do this, the new layers from paste operations will have a sharp edge, but this is fixable by adding a layer mask and using a soft edge brush to paint black into the mask around the edges. This will blend the edges smoothly for you.

Hope this helps.

timk519

Techv wrote:

In Photoshop, you can use lasso/copy/paste to duplicate the shadow area you have out over the stretch of missing photo.

After you do this, the new layers from paste operations will have a sharp edge, but this is fixable by adding a layer mask and using a soft edge brush to paint black into the mask around the edges. This will blend the edges smoothly for you.

Soft edge brush? I found a blur tool, but didn't see a soft edge brush.

where would I find it?

timk519

EarthDog wrote:

I've never tried it, but would the new Content Aware Scaling in CS4 help? I'm thinking it might be possible to "scale" the patch of grass between the hole and the fence to fill in enough of the hole to allow you to crop where you need/want. Maybe in multiple stages, rather than one big step. Digital interpolation usually works better in small steps.

I'll have to do some digging and see if I can find that.

Thanks for the pointer!

EarthDog

timk519 wrote:

I'll have to do some digging and see if I can find that.

Thanks for the pointer!

You're welcome. If I remember correctly, it's under the Edit menu, but only available after you select the whole image. I haven't had reason to use it, aside from playing with it when it first came out, but if it works for your situation, it could save you a lot of touch up work. It does all the blending for you, unlike any of the patch methods.